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Newspaper reports show that from January 1, 2004 to May 16, 2004, about 29 farmers in Andhra Pradesh (AP) committed suicide. From May 17, the suicides suddenly increased: the AP Rytu Sangham, the farmers' wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has compiled reports of 279 suicides by farmers in the state in one month.

India has the largest tribal population in the world. Tribals number 8.6 per cent of its total population. They are also among the country's most marginalised. Why has India's political democracy not given its tribals their due? What is in India's political system that prevents the tribal voice from being heard? Or have tribal representatives in the high echelons of India's politicaldom failed their constituencies? What exactly is wrong?

BUILDING TENSIONS
NGOs have raised issues that hurt political and business interests, inevitably creating tensions
"It is the reformer who is anxious for the reform, and not society, from which he should expect nothing better than opposition, abhorrence and even mortal persecution."
M K Gandhi
'The Story of my Experiments with Truth'

The recently concluded Fourth UN world conference on women (FWCW) in Beijing, scored important gains for the fair sex while avoiding the setbacks which been apprehended. Women the right to sexual self-determination and equal inheritance in the face of well organised event backlash.

COLONIAL forest administration, which didn't give a damn about the fecund land it was so easily reducing to cinders and stumps, lasted almost a century. The sad thing is that even after Independence, the imperial order of green decimation refused to come unstuck and is now almost pathologically entrenched in the minds of a bureaucracy paralysed by 40 years of self-misrule and a complete lack of a love 0' the land.

Armenia is debating the repeal of controversial legislation that has led to a sharp increase in libel suits filed against media organisations. The country’s human rights ombudsman Karen Andreasian has urged the court to consider declaring the law unconstitutional after protests from editors of leading publications. Amendments to Armenia’s libel laws last year decriminalised libel, but toughened financial penalties. After that at least 15 libel suits have been filed by government officials, including former president Robert Kocharian, and businessmen with government connections.